


Eight Nights of Hanukkah

by Elias Bergman (sashawrites)



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: F/M, Family, Gen, Hanukkah, Holidays, Jewish Holidays
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 21:57:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16819249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sashawrites/pseuds/Elias%20Bergman
Summary: Family in various forms, coming together for a celebration of light and miracles and our favorite characters are in for the ride.not in chronological orderOne short per night, all Hanukkah themed. Chag sameach to all of you who celebrate, and a lovely, joyous December to everyone.





	Eight Nights of Hanukkah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abe is twelve, it's the second night of the Festival of Lights and get ready for a family of dorks who love each other like their lives depend on it. Our boy is doing the thing. The blessings thing. And he's a man, mom!

**Rotterdam, Sunday, December 7th 1958**

The father didn't disturb the boy, muttering the same words under his breath, over and over. He had been doing this, for about a month. Either that or humming a melody, sometimes without even noticing.

  
Soon, he was going to be a bar mitzvah, a man of the commandments. Time to prepare for that. He had been taking on more and more mitzvot designated to the man of the house, this year. In preparation of his bar mitzvah, he had studied and shared opinions and his views on deep, deep questions. It had been a joy to his parents and they felt like they knew the man their son was becoming so much better, than just a year ago.

  
Once he was done recalling the words of the blessings he was supposed to recite, that night, Henry spoke to young Abraham,

  
“You’re going to do great. I noticed last night, that you were saying the blessings with me.”

  
“I don’t know why this is so special to me, dad. It just is and I don’t want to mess up.”

  
Raising Abraham Jewish had been a conscious choice to Henry and Abigail Morgan. They didn’t want him to miss out on that part of his heritage, just because he was adopted. His biological parents weren’t here, but he had the terror they had gone through tattooed on his arm. His name was Abraham. People assumed, anyways.

  
Henry didn’t have religious believes. He felt like a bit of an imposter, simply going through the motions for his son, but he did it for the boy. The god Abe and Abigail believed in would surely understand that.

  
Abigail had been a bit more conflicted about practicing Judaism when she was a Christian. Henry had reminded her that Jesus had been a Jew and that an omniscient god would know what she believed, that she wasn’t denying Jesus when she was raising her son in this tradition. Making friends with other parents in the community, back in New York, had helped her immensely. Abe was not the only one in the family who had learned a lot at synagogue. Both Henry and Abigail had started going, way before Abe could have ever understood any of it all.

  
That was just the way the Morgan family worked. On fridays or saturdays, they would all attend service at the synagogue and on sundays at church. Abe always had the choice on whether he was coming along, ever since he could stay alone, for the time. He had chosen to make breakfast on sundays, instead, at age nine. He had understood that these were two separate, if related, religions and his parents had explained the situation to him on more than one occasion, throughout his childhood. He had been able to grasp it, at that point. He had made an informed decision and both his parents appreciated that.

  
Abe also knew that it was the way of his original family, a piece of his background he couldn’t possibly remember, no matter how hard he tried, but was weaved into his DNA. Having survived was a part of who he was, although having been just a baby, at the time, it couldn’t have been his personal achievement. He sometimes wondered why him, pondered what it would have been like, if one or both of his original parents had made it out, with or without him. He was 12, but he dug deep, beyond his years.

  
Every now and then, Henry would observe his son and try to place some mannerism or a character trait. Was his humor an effect of growing up as Abigail’s son or did it stem from his biological parents? Was that Henry’s own seriousness or that of a dead man or woman? Or perhaps a sign of an intangible thread strung through him, as a result of the horror his people had gotten through? Henry was a man of science, but he also knew that science wasn’t anywhere near explaining all of the world.

  
Those kinds of thoughts didn’t always reach that deep. Often enough, he would wonder which side of the family Abe had gotten his two different colored eyes from, whether he had cousins, somewhere in the world with this same set of one blue and one black eye. Yes, this was his and Abigail’s son, but also someone else’s. There was nothing wrong with that.

  
So really, it wasn’t so long since Henry had learned those blessing, himself. Especially from his perspective on time.

  
“Let’s go help your mother with dinner?” The response from the kitchen came promptly,

  
“Abe, you’re free to help me, but Dr. Knowitall is still banned.” Henry considered protesting, but instead, he whispered to Abe,

  
“She’s just jealous I’m smart.” Abe hardly even had time to react, before his mother commented on the words she hadn’t heard but knew her husband had said,

  
“My intellect leaves nothing to envy you, Henry. I’m thrilled you’re smart. You just sometimes forget to be a gentleman about it.” Could that be true? Quite a bit of Henry’s identity consisted of being a gentleman.

  
“I beg you pardon, lady. When have I not been a gentleman?”

  
Abigail appeared in the door, just to shoot him a look.

  
“I can’t say I remember whatever you’re referring to.”

  
Abigail’s gaze wandered over to Abe, who managed not to squirm, but not by much.

  
“You know what I’m referring to, don’t you, Abraham?”

  
“Mom?” A long pause, then

  
“I’m a man, mom!” Like that would impress her.

  
“Do you know what I’m referring to?” Finally, a hesitant

  
“Yes” The sigh enveloping this single word sounded suspiciously teenaged.

  
“You’ll figure it out, then, Henry. Once you’ve apologised, I’ll happily welcome you back into our kitchen.” Now what had he said? Abigail didn’t seem genuinely upset, but displeased enough to not want him in the kitchen with her. He usually knew exactly what to say to women, but this one? She knew how to keep him fascinated. How’d he ever get this lucky?

  
“Sorry, pops, but mom has a point. Thanks for the encouragement.”

Abe looked confident when, just before sunset, that night, Abigail struck a match and handed it to her son, who went on to light the shamash. The boy sung the blessings-

  
“Baruch atah, Adonai”-the words and the melody finally meeting.

  
“Eloheinu, Melech haolam”

  
Henry thought that this might well be the first and last year Abe would sing them, before his voice would sound like a young man’s voice, all the way.

  
“Asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav” Abe, on the other hand, was a little insecure about his voice cracking in the middle of a line.

  
“V’tsivanu l’hadlik ner shel Hanukkah” As he finished the first blessing he searched for his parents’ eyes and found in them what he needed to continue with the second blessing,

  
“Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, she-asah nisim laavoteinu v’imoteinu bayamim hahaeim baz’man hazeh.”

  
Next year, he’d have to sing it in a different key. He lit the second candle, first. When both candles were burning, he stuck the shamash back onto the middle of the menorah.

  
One might assume, it only looked right, complete, finished, during the last night, with all the candles lit, but the way it was, right then, shamash and two candles lit, didn’t look the slightest bit incomplete. It looked appropriate. It looked _to be continued_.

Abe thought it looked beautiful and he went on to celebrate Hanukkah with his protestant mom and atheist dad, ate too many latkes and mused about what the Maccabees might have felt like, experiencing the miracle, first hand.


End file.
